This Is Your Life
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day three hundred and eight: Rachel explores the questions still troubling her in this new world.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 14th cycle. Now cycle 15!_

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**"This Is Your Life"  
Rachel(/Jesse)  
****Sequel to "That's Some Freaky Friday Shit" and "Odd Directions"  
****Prequel: "Stages Apart"**

All throughout practice, it was a great big tug of war in Rachel's mind. On the one side, there was the still very fresh confusion over just what was happening. She remembered how it was supposed to be, but then this place was real, it wasn't a dream… No matter how she weighed the good and the bad of her life, her true life, she wasn't going to trade it out, but she just didn't know how she'd found herself here so how was she supposed to get home?

Then there was the other side, the… draw, the intoxication of having both her birth mother and a challenge. She was lucky, she'd had this work ethic in her all her life... If not for that, she might have stuck out more as being not the same Rachel they were probably expecting. So, on that front, her predicament about being in this other world could stop being on her mind. But then she'd remember, and she'd stumble, just for a second.

When they were done, Rachel hesitated briefly, part of her still needing to know if she was supposed to know who Shelby Corcoran was to her, or if she was still in the dark in this world. She was still her mother, in this she could trust; surely a change in genetics would have shown… Absently, she reached her fingers to her face, traced her features.

"What are you doing?" Andrea came up to her, and Rachel's hands immediately dropped back down.

"Nothing," she promised, abandoning the Shelby spying for the moment and moving to leave the auditorium. Andrea followed her, and Rachel worked subtly to make it so she was following Andrea, who would know where they had to go next. They went to change and, in that time, Rachel figured the questions she wanted to ask, without sounding suspicious somehow. She wasn't too clear what she could be suspected of, but she still felt it was in her best interest to keep her best interest to keep her secret. They may have known bizarro-Rachel, but she didn't trust they'd believe her or that they wouldn't lock her up in a mental hospital.

Still, it hadn't taken long for her to understand that, in this world, she was pretty close friends with Andrea Cohen, to the point where she appeared to know about Rachel's home life. So after they'd reached a moment of silence, she'd made her 'move.'

"This might sound strange, but just bear with me?" she asked, and Andrea nodded, confused. "Have I ever mentioned my mother?"

"Not really? I mean you just told me about her briefly when I asked you… You said there was nothing to know, so there was nothing to say. Why, did you find out about anything?"

"No, no," Rachel shrugged, slightly disappointed. It didn't sound like this Rachel had any clue. Or maybe… she did, but she couldn't tell, not even to her friend… So on that front, it was a bust. It was not anything she couldn't handle; she had other questions, one she still wasn't grasping in particular. And after her question about her mother, she knew she had to seek a different approach. She was at least able to catch on to how they had seen that video earlier. "So that Lima club…" she started, and Andrea quickly latched on.

"Hardly anything to worry about," she chuckled. "Call me crazy, but I think we've earned that confidence. 'Competition' is nothing more than formality…" Rachel was taken aback briefly, seeing this other side of Andrea. It did lift another question, one she couldn't really see herself asking, both for its oddity and for how the answer might affect her… She wondered what she was like, the other Rachel. Was she as mean as she'd known Vocal Adrenaline to be? She may have had her faults, but there were limits to all of it. But she was deviating. That question may have been unspeakable, but there were others that weren't.

"Well that Jesse , he's…"

"Oh, he may be a cut above, but look where he is," Andrea just scoffed. Rachel resisted the urge to speak up for them, just barely, especially as Andrea looked to her. "What is up with you today?" Rachel paused, a decision coming to her out of the confrontation.

"Actually I'm not feeling too good, I… I'm going to head on back… Bye," she told a shocked Andrea – no doubt about the fact that she'd call in sick – and hurried on out. At this point she didn't care about getting in trouble for skipping. No, now she had a plan, and the first step was clear: Get to McKinley High.

THE END

_[A/N: Attention, reader! If you're at all skilled in helping break fic-planning conundrums, give a big ol' shout! :D]  
(Note to self, don't put the words 'crack' and 'fic' next to each other, it leads to confusion ;))_

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**_[A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, story alert won't get you anything! ;)]_**


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